Amelia’s Magazine | London Fashion Week S/S 2011 Catwalk Review: Romina Karamanea

Illustration by Rob Wallace

JW Anderson’s Autumn Winter 2010 collection was a celebration of the understated. Opening the rather quiet menswear day at the BFC on September 23rd, buy information pills the designer’s Spring/Summer 2011 collection unleashed models dressed as Liberty sponsored waif and strays.

All Photography by Matt Bramford

The collection was luxe hippie, medicine a perennially popular look that rarely translate into the everyday, unless you happen to be a rock star from years’ past. Nevertheless, it is wonderfully pretty, especially when the boys came highly reminiscent of Jimi Hendrix’s flowery rock attire crossed with the early portraiture of Walker Evans.

Following his video presentation earlier during the week. JW Anderson choose to unleash his recent expansion into faery-esque womenswear onto the menswear catwalk, drawing a few raised eyebrows from a front row settling in for a day of uninterrupted menswear.


Inspired by the photography of William Gedney the collection captured a sense of youthful naive freedom last seen in the work of Sally Mann at The Photographers Gallery.

Illustration by Rob Wallace

A nod to American Youth subcultures, (everything is a nod these day, a rehash, a reminiscence) the clothes arrived as bleached out dreamy tie dyes combined with floral print trousers for the boys and long sheer skirts fitted underneath fisherman knits for the girls.

The collection, a homage to youthful runaways on the Great American Road trip was heavy in the literary romanticism in which JW Anderson excels.

For the finale, the models (beautifully styled by Robbie Spencer) sauntered to the youthful dissatisfaction of Jarvis Cocker’s Pulp, underneath the eery green light provided by lasers more commonly seen at Fabric.

Illustration by Rob Wallace

JW Anderson’s Autumn Winter 2010 collection was a celebration of the understated. Opening the rather quiet menswear day at the BFC on September 23rd, website like this the designer’s Spring/Summer 2011 collection unleashed models dressed as Liberty sponsored waif and strays.

All Photography by Matt Bramford

The collection was luxe hippie, look a perennially popular look that rarely translate into the everyday, cialis 40mg unless you happen to be a rock star from years’ past. Nevertheless, it is wonderfully pretty, especially when the boys came highly reminiscent of Jimi Hendrix’s flowery rock attire crossed with the early portraiture of Walker Evans.

Following his video presentation earlier during the week. JW Anderson choose to unleash his recent expansion into faery-esque womenswear onto the menswear catwalk, drawing a few raised eyebrows from a front row settling in for a day of uninterrupted menswear.


Inspired by the photography of William Gedney the collection captured a sense of youthful naive freedom last seen in the work of Sally Mann at The Photographers Gallery.

Illustration by Rob Wallace

A nod to American Youth subcultures, (everything is a nod these day, a rehash, a reminiscence) the clothes arrived as bleached out dreamy tie dyes combined with floral print trousers for the boys and long sheer skirts fitted underneath fisherman knits for the girls.

The collection, a homage to youthful runaways on the Great American Road trip was heavy in the literary romanticism in which JW Anderson excels.

For the finale, the models (beautifully styled by Robbie Spencer) sauntered to the youthful dissatisfaction of Jarvis Cocker’s Pulp, underneath the eery green light provided by lasers more commonly seen at Fabric.

Illustration by Rob Wallace

JW Anderson’s Autumn Winter 2010 collection was a celebration of the understated. Opening the rather quiet menswear day at the BFC on September 23rd, pharmacy the designer’s Spring/Summer 2011 collection unleashed models dressed as Liberty sponsored waif and strays.

All Photography by Matt Bramford

The collection was luxe hippie, a perennially popular look that rarely translate into the everyday, unless you happen to be a rock star from years’ past. Nevertheless, it is wonderfully pretty, especially when the boys came highly reminiscent of Jimi Hendrix’s flowery rock attire crossed with the early portraiture of Walker Evans.

Following his video presentation earlier during the week. JW Anderson choose to unleash his recent expansion into faery-esque womenswear onto the menswear catwalk, drawing a few raised eyebrows from a front row settling in for a day of uninterrupted menswear.


Inspired by the photography of William Gedney the collection captured a sense of youthful naive freedom last seen in the work of Sally Mann at The Photographers Gallery.

Illustration by Rob Wallace

A nod to American Youth subcultures, (everything is a nod these day, a rehash, a reminiscence) the clothes arrived as bleached out dreamy tie dyes combined with floral print trousers for the boys and long sheer skirts fitted underneath fisherman knits for the girls.

The collection, a homage to youthful runaways on the Great American Road trip was heavy in the literary romanticism in which JW Anderson excels.

For the finale, the models (beautifully styled by Robbie Spencer) sauntered to the youthful dissatisfaction of Jarvis Cocker’s Pulp, underneath the eery green light provided by lasers more commonly seen at Fabric.

Romina Karamanea skirt by Joana Faria
Romina Karamanea by Joana Faria.

For the past two seasons the good PRs for Romina Karamanea have ensured that there has been a ridiculously long queue of baying fashionistas gathered outside the venue before they will let anyone inside. And so it was that I found myself being battered around on the steps of the Freemasons’ Hall on Tuesday evening: it was late in the week and it wasn’t really what I wanted to deal with. My ex flatmate, for sale a stylist that I used to work for at The Face – we fell out – elbowed her way through with a bit of a hissy fit. I was seriously considering just calling it a day and going right home. But then security announced that it was “too late for stars” meaning that the complex sticker system on invites was about to be ditched, and the PRs next to me agreed that the most important people were at the front anyway – that would include me! love it when I feel less of a pleb – and it all looked good to go.

Romina Karamanea pants by Joana Faria
Romina Karamanea by Joana Faria
Romina Karamanea by Joana Faria.

Ushered into one of the gorgeous upper halls I was seated only three chairs down from my nemesis, who of course refused to acknowledge me. Which is just fine, our relationship never recovered after she moved out of my house and refused to pay her outstanding rent. But it did make me smile. Oh happy days. A funny little girl in latex stockings was placed between us and quickly presented me with her card and a badge. I had to spend the whole show trying to take photos around her as she leaned into the catwalk to take hers, but in the grand tradition of fashion week poseurs she sure was good at attracting attention.

Romina Karamanea SS2011 photo by Amelia Gregory
Romina Karamanea SS2011 photo by Amelia Gregory
Romina Karamanea SS2011 photo by Amelia Gregory
Romina-Karamanea-by-Lisa-Stannard
Romina Karamanea by Lisa Stannard.

For this season Greek born, Central Saint Martins trained Romina looked to abstract expressionism for inspiration, though as her press release cheekily says, basically “the designer had popped to see her artist friend Hermes for a glass of wine.” Three colour stories of white, bluey green and red explored passionate brush strokes and the patterns of natural phenomena and geology. Opposing structures morphed into one garment, voluminous swathes of chiffon colliding with cleanly structured tailoring. It was a big collection that included a smattering of menswear but my favourite pieces were undoubtedly the final ones, glorious rich red undergarments topped with sweeping patterned dresses. Utterly divine.

Romina Karamanea by Joana Faria
Romina Karamanea by Joana Faria
Romina Karamanea by Joana Faria.

I wasn’t aware that Romina Karamanea was an advocate of sustainable design until I found a leaflet featuring her work in the basement at Esthetica, where the Centre for Sustainable Fashion had a corner stand showcasing some of the designers they work with. This organisation was set up by the London College of Fashion, with the aim of “challenging and provoking the established fashion system to work towards the goals of promoting human well being and respecting nature’s limits, whilst creating beauty and style.” Fashion designers are invited to attend workshops and one to one mentoring sessions about how to implement sustainable design practices and apparently Romina is one of their ambassadors, which is very exciting news.

Romina Karamanea SS2011 photo by Amelia Gregory
Romina Karamanea SS2011 photo by Amelia Gregory
Romina Karamanea SS2011 photo by Amelia Gregory
Romina-Karamanea-by-Lisa-Stannard
Romina Karamanea by Lisa Stannard.

But a line in the first paragraph of her blurb immediately made my heart sink just a tiny bit. And not just because of the bad grammar. “Each piece is designed to be loved and kept forever getting better over-time, hopefully like the wearer.” Along with the notion of upcycling (now a far trendier way to say recycling in fashion circles) and making the most of factory waste – both of which I hasten to add are admirable choices when it comes to making fashion – creating clothes to be worn for a long time has become a bit of a get out quick clause for designers. It’s an easy statement to trot out because high fashion is invariably all about luxury and has a price tag to match. Not many people who invest in designer pieces are likely to throw away their purchases every season.

Romina Karamanea SS2011 photo by Amelia Gregory
Romina Karamanea SS2011 photo by Amelia Gregory
Romina Karamanea SS2011 photo by Amelia Gregory
Romina Karamanea SS2011 photo by Amelia Gregory
All photography by Amelia Gregory.

But let’s just stop and think a bit more here. The reality is that these designers continue to show new collections, and we are inevitably urged to delve deep and create ourselves a new wardrobe each time a new season comes around. I only very rarely buy new clothes myself but I can’t claim to be completely removed from the process because I also get really excited about new creativity on the catwalks. It’s an innate human excitement that you can’t take away, but it’s how we deal with that feeling that counts. Of course I am against throwaway mass produced fashion, but sustainability cannot be achieved merely by saying that people should treasure clothes forever, not whilst producing a new collection twice a year with no deeper links to sustainable practice.

Romina Karamanea SS2011 photo by Amelia Gregory
Romina Karamanea SS2011 photo by Amelia Gregory
Romina Karamanea SS2011 photo by Amelia Gregory
Romina Karamanea SS2011 photo by Amelia Gregory
Romina Karamanea SS2011 photo by Amelia Gregory

Reading on, I applaud Romina Karamanea‘s efforts. She is careful to fully research her supply chain, reduce fabric waste, utilise low impact digital printing techniques and organic cottons. She’s an edgy designer with a big following who can really affect people’s perception of working in a sustainable way. But it’s interesting that none of this information was on the press release for the catwalk show, or on her website: after all, who wants to be pigeonholed? It says a lot about how we still perceive an ethical imperative in design.

Romina Karamanea SS2011 photo by Amelia Gregory
Romina Karamanea SS2011 photo by Amelia Gregory
Romina Karamanea SS2011 photo by Amelia Gregory
Romina Karamanea SS2011 photo by Amelia Gregory
Romina Karamanea SS2011 photo by Amelia Gregory
Romina Karamanea SS2011 photo by Amelia Gregory
Romina Karamanea SS2011 photo by Amelia Gregory
Romina Karamanea SS2011 photo by Amelia Gregory

Categories ,Central Saint Martins, ,Centre for Sustainable Fashion, ,Defying Mainstream, ,esthetica, ,ethical design, ,Freemasons’ Hall, ,Greek, ,Joana Faria, ,lfw, ,Lisa Stannard, ,London College of Fashion, ,London Fashion Week, ,Romina Karamanea, ,sustainability, ,The Defiant, ,The Face

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Amelia’s Magazine | London Fashion Week: 2010 FAD Junior Awards


Illustration by Abby Wright

It’s always a treat at Fashion Week to find that the show you are about to see, decease starting in the next few minutes, is at a totally different venue to the one you had in your head and are currently standing at. I found myself in this marvellous situation as Tim Soar’s show approached. God knows why I thought it was at Somerset House and not at the Freemason’s Hall. Menswear day brought these kind of surprises all day – with many designers scaling down their presence. I had seen Tim’s show a year ago in the BFC tent, so how dare they move its location?!

I need not have worried as I legged it up Drury Lane, for, true to form, the show was running late and hadn’t even been seated when I showed up. I was right at the back of the queue, though – AGAIN – so decided to perch by the photographer’s pit in the hope of getting a better shot than I would have positioned on one of the back rows.

This show saw Soar draw inspiration from the 1970s, and in particular David Bowie’s character ‘Mr Newton’ in Nicholas Roeg’s epic ‘The Man Who Fell From Earth.’ This inspiration was, in true Tim Soar style, handled with delicacy and acted only as a descrete reference here and there. Trousers flared off, but not in a grotesque fancy dress sense, and lapels were elongated, but not in a Stayin’ Alive, Stayin’ Alive, Hah Hah Hah Hah sense. The bulk of the collection relied on Soar’s showmanship as a really great tailor with a unique vision.


Illustration by Abby Wright

Making the best use of luxe fabrics like mohair, satin, wool crepe and linen, models wore strict suits with a piecemeal utilitarian aesthetic. The use of Tyvek, the waxy crushed industrial material usually reserved for workers boiler suits, also adds to this technical flavour.

Blazers were banded with cummerbund-like straps in contrasting colours – where jackets were dark, the bands were of gold silk, and where jackets were sand, the bands were black. Denim made an appearance, also creating horizontal lines across structured tailoring.

Alongside this semi-formal attire, there were the usual design quirks that Tim Soar is quickly faming himself for. His appreciation of the aesthetic properties of materials and quality of texture was also on display, with crushed materials and bursts of vibrant colour (he is, after all, also a graphic designer).

It’s hard to imagine how a Tyvek jailer-style striped suit will work alongside an exemplary tailored blazer, but somehow Tim Soar’s collections always convey a stylish coherence.

This season also brought more womenswear, which is basically menswear with allowances for hips, busts and bums. It’s a testament to Tim Soar’s generally cool attitude, though, that his aesthetic works wonders on both women and men.


Illustration by Abby Wright

It’s always a treat at Fashion Week to find that the show you are about to see, doctor starting in the next few minutes, is at a totally different venue to the one you had in your head and are currently standing at. I found myself in this marvellous situation as Tim Soar’s show approached. God knows why I thought it was at Somerset House and not at the Freemason’s Hall. Menswear day brought these kind of surprises all day – with many designers scaling down their presence. I had seen Tim’s show a year ago in the BFC tent, so how dare they move its location?!

I need not have worried as I legged it up Drury Lane, for, true to form, the show was running late and hadn’t even been seated when I showed up. I was right at the back of the queue, though – AGAIN – so decided to perch by the photographer’s pit in the hope of getting a better shot than I would have positioned on one of the back rows.

This show saw Soar draw inspiration from the 1970s, and in particular David Bowie’s character ‘Mr Newton’ in Nicholas Roeg’s epic ‘The Man Who Fell From Earth.’ This inspiration was, in true Tim Soar style, handled with delicacy and acted only as a descrete reference here and there. Trousers flared off, but not in a grotesque fancy dress sense, and lapels were elongated, but not in a Stayin’ Alive, Stayin’ Alive, Hah Hah Hah Hah sense. The bulk of the collection relied on Soar’s showmanship as a really great tailor with a unique vision.


Illustration by Abby Wright

Making the best use of luxe fabrics like mohair, satin, wool crepe and linen, models wore strict suits with a piecemeal utilitarian aesthetic. The use of Tyvek, the waxy crushed industrial material usually reserved for workers boiler suits, also adds to this technical flavour.

Blazers were banded with cummerbund-like straps in contrasting colours – where jackets were dark, the bands were of gold silk, and where jackets were sand, the bands were black. Denim made an appearance, also creating horizontal lines across structured tailoring.

Alongside this semi-formal attire, there were the usual design quirks that Tim Soar is quickly faming himself for. His appreciation of the aesthetic properties of materials and quality of texture was also on display, with crushed materials and bursts of vibrant colour (he is, after all, also a graphic designer).

It’s hard to imagine how a Tyvek jailer-style striped suit will work alongside an exemplary tailored blazer, but somehow Tim Soar’s collections always convey a stylish coherence.

This season also brought more womenswear, which is basically menswear with allowances for hips, busts and bums. It’s a testament to Tim Soar’s generally cool attitude, though, that his aesthetic works wonders on both women and men.


Illustration by Yuann Shen

Born in India, sale Stefan Orschel-Read grew up in Scotland, he won gold medals as a dressage rider for Great Britain and also studied law before deciding on a career in fashion. His Central Saint Martins graduate collection in 2008 was based on Virginia Wolfe’s novel ‘Orlando’; a historical biography in which the subject’s lives over 400 years and changes gender mid way. Subsequent collections were inspired by cathedral murals and the works of Shakespeare, so it was interesting to see the RCA graduate’s stimulus for S/S 2011 being something a slightly more conventional.

Entitled ‘The Spy Who Becomes Me’, SS11 is inspired by an imagined playboy youth in the Riviera of the Ligurian Sea and his struggle to evolve into ‘a self-sufficient gentleman of responsibilities’.

Although more subdued than his previous seasons, this sophisticated collection successfully utlilised an array of luxurious fabrics which were expertly tailored and incorporated some distinctive detailing. The tag line of the collection is ’We all have a little bit of espionage in us’, but I doubt Orschel Read would be the best outfitter for a Bond-style spy-on-a-mission who hopes to be easily lost in a crowd.

Looks were presented in a refined palette of greys, soft khakis and airforce blues, punctuated with jewel tones and blazes of iridescence.


Illustration by Yuann Shen

Modern slim-fitting suits with traces of utilitarian military styling, such as extended epaulettes, were created in sumptuous British cashmere tailoring wools and iridescent tonic suiting.  The blazers at the more muted end of the palette were complemented with dupion silk shirts, glowing in emerald and olive tones.

Digitally printed monograms, paisley and bird motifs were applied to boxers and shirt panels, some silk brocade being produced in collaboration with Italian luxury tailor Brioni, apparently the go-to-coutouriers of a whole host of names from Nelson Mandela to Robert Kennedy and Luciano Pavarotti to Donald Trump.

Alongside his blazers and formal trousers, Orschel-Read showed biker jackets in cashmere suiting, jeans named after MI5 and MI6 and gauzy hand dyed and beaded bias cut vests seen under many of the blazers.  Oversized trench coats in pale denim continued the spy theme, and monogrammed underwear was shown with raglan sleeve sweaters with rib detailing.


Illustration by Yuann Shen

Born in India, decease Stefan Orschel-Read grew up in Scotland, he won gold medals as a dressage rider for Great Britain and also studied law before deciding on a career in fashion. His Central Saint Martins graduate collection in 2008 was based on Virginia Wolfe’s novel ‘Orlando’; a historical biography in which the subject’s lives over 400 years and changes gender mid way. Subsequent collections were inspired by cathedral murals and the works of Shakespeare, so it was interesting to see the RCA graduate’s stimulus for S/S 2011 being something a slightly more conventional.

Entitled ‘The Spy Who Becomes Me’, SS11 is inspired by an imagined playboy youth in the Riviera of the Ligurian Sea and his struggle to evolve into ‘a self-sufficient gentleman of responsibilities’.

Although more subdued than his previous seasons, this sophisticated collection successfully utlilised an array of luxurious fabrics which were expertly tailored and incorporated some distinctive detailing. The tag line of the collection is ’We all have a little bit of espionage in us’, but I doubt Orschel Read would be the best outfitter for a Bond-style spy-on-a-mission who hopes to be easily lost in a crowd.

Looks were presented in a refined palette of greys, soft khakis and airforce blues, punctuated with jewel tones and blazes of iridescence.


Illustration by Yuann Shen

Modern slim-fitting suits with traces of utilitarian military styling, such as extended epaulettes, were created in sumptuous British cashmere tailoring wools and iridescent tonic suiting.  The blazers at the more muted end of the palette were complemented with dupion silk shirts, glowing in emerald and olive tones.

Digitally printed monograms, paisley and bird motifs were applied to boxers and shirt panels, some silk brocade being produced in collaboration with Italian luxury tailor Brioni, apparently the go-to-coutouriers of a whole host of names from Nelson Mandela to Robert Kennedy and Luciano Pavarotti to Donald Trump.

Alongside his blazers and formal trousers, Orschel-Read showed biker jackets in cashmere suiting, jeans named after MI5 and MI6 and gauzy hand dyed and beaded bias cut vests seen under many of the blazers.  Oversized trench coats in pale denim continued the spy theme, and monogrammed underwear was shown with raglan sleeve sweaters with rib detailing.

FADAwards-the tightrope walker-Florence Melrose by-Barbara-Ana-G
The Tightrope Walker – an illustration of a dress designed by Florence Melrose, find illustrated by Barbara Ana Gomez.

I’m a bit rubbish when it actually comes to checking what’s what during fashion week – I will generally go to most things that I’m invited to on the grounds that if someone has bothered to invite me then I should generally return the honour by actually turning up. Not so most magazine editors I might add – many was the time that I would swan into a fashion show under the guise of Katie Grand at The Face. She never went, approved and yours truly got the golden tickets.

FAD awards SS2011 - abi daker
Dress by Rebecca Glyn-Blanco of Camden School for Girls. Illustration by Abigail Daker.

FADAwards Keep it secret-by-Barbara-Ana-Gomez
Keep it Secret – illustration of a dress by Sinead Cloonan from City & Islington College by Barbara Ana Gomez.

And as I’ve already mentioned I don’t do queues – not in Tescos, prescription and certainly not during fashion week. To this end my heart sank as I rounded the corner to Freemasons’ Hall and found a line of people streaming down the street. What was this FAD awards malarkey anyway? Heading to the front of the queue I waggled my ticket at an unknown PR person and hoped for the best, so was somewhat surprised to be informed in hushed tones that I was a VIP and could go straight on through. Upstairs in one of the many architecturally fabulous chambers, Matt and I sipped on sweet fizzy stuff as we tried to figure out what this was all about.

FAD-Awards-sketches-Amelias-Magazine-by-kila_kitu
FAD-Awards 2010-Kila Kitu
Dress by Yashodah Rodgers as illustrated by Kila Kitu.

Apparently we’ve been very supportive of FAD in the past, and once I’d looked up our previous coverage it did suddenly all ring a bell. But I wasn’t quite prepared for the sheer unadulterated upbeat joy of this event. Right in the thick of a hectic fashion week it’s a true testament to the achievement of this organisation that I could sit through yet another long catwalk show and come out the other end beaming with goodwill.

LFW_FAD_Awards_Abigail_Nottingham
The European Fashion Designer award winning dress from Paul Vasileff and Shahira Bakhoum. Illustrated by Abigail Nottingham.

FADAwards Flower-Rebecca Glyn-Blanco by-Barbara-Ana-G
Rebecca Glyn-Blanco by Barbara Ana Gomez.

Just to recap quickly, FAD stands for Fashion Awareness Direct and it is a charity that aims to empower young people – as the brochure says “Fashion is a great way to connect with young people from different backgrounds, to give them confidence and raise their aspirations for the future.”

FAD awards SS2011 - Adam Preece by Abi Daker
Adam Preece by Abigail Daker.

LFW_FAD_awards Chelsey Ward by Abigail-Nottingham
Chelsey Ward by Abigail Nottingham.

Last year we covered the undergraduates awards show, but this year we were in for a much younger treat: the FAD Junior Awards showcased the designs of finalists chosen from 130 teenagers aged 16-19. Yes dear reader, you may well have to keep pinching yourself as you take a look through the images. I know I did, and I was sitting right there when they paraded past. Created over the course of five days at the University of East London with the help of an experienced team of tutors, the outfits put together by these young designers would put many graduates to shame.

LFW_FAD_Awards Karmen-Marie Parker by Abigail_Nottingham
Karmen-Marie Parker by Abigail Nottingham.

FAD-Awards-Natalie Goreham by-kila_kitu
Natalie Goreham by Kila Kitu.

To start off the evening’s events previous finalist Prash Muraleetharan took to the stage with a bit of confident advice, endearingly delivered. “It’s what you do with this moment which determines a winner…. so get upstairs and network,” he advised, somewhat sagely. At the end he winked. And I’m sure he winked at me. Blimey… what a charmer… it’s quite hard to countenance that Prash must still be a teenager, and yet he already runs his own fashion label with a website and everything.

FAD junior awards 2010 photo by Amelia Gregory
Prash Muraleetharan dispels his words of wisdom at the start of the ceremony. All photography by Amelia Gregory.

After the V&A inspired catwalk show we had speeches from the sleek Susan Aubrey-Cound of M&S and Lucy Jones of UEL, followed by the prizegiving by the extremely fabulous Zandra Rhodes, who is *the cutest* when she smiles! The winners and their parents looked so overwhelmed it really did warm the cockles of my jaded fashionista heart.

Zandra-Rhodes-FAD-Awards-2010-Antonia-Parker-Amelias-Magazine-A
Zandra Rhodes by Antonia Parker. I wuv her.

FAD junior awards 2010 photo by Amelia Gregory
Paul Vasileff and Shahira Bakhoum of Milan step up first to take the prize for the European Fashion Designer Competition, which was the culmination of a two year project.

FAD junior awards 2010 photo by Amelia Gregory
Karmen-Marie Parker with her winning design shortly before she burst into tears… aw, bless.

FAD junior awards 2010 photo by Amelia Gregory
Andre Augusto: pattern cutting award winner.

FAD junior awards 2010 photo by Amelia Gregory
Research award winner Sarah Kilkenny.

FAD junior awards 2010 photo by Amelia Gregory
17 year old David Short – the first boy to become overall winner and a proper little fashionista in the making.

Within this blog you’ll find my favourite pieces to hit the runway – and just remember, they were all designed and made by 16-19 year olds. Quite astonishing I’m sure you’ll agree.

FAD junior awards 2010 Shomari Williams photo by Amelia Gregory
Shomari Williams.

FAD junior awards 2010 Emily Rogers photo by Amelia Gregory
Yashodah Rodgers.

FAD junior awards 2010 Charlie Ibouillie photo by Amelia Gregory
Charlie Ibouillie.

FAD junior awards 2010 Sinead Cloonan photo by Amelia Gregory
Sinead Cloonan.

FAD junior awards 2010 European winners photo by Amelia Gregory
FAD junior awards 2010 European winners photo by Amelia Gregory
The winner of the European competition.

FAD junior awards 2010 Rebecca Glyn-Blanco photo by Amelia Gregory
Rebecca Glyn-Blanco.

FAD junior awards 2010 Natalie Goreham photo by Amelia Gregory
Natalie Goreham.

FAD junior awards 2010 Florence Melrose photo by Amelia Gregory
Florence Melrose.

FAD junior awards 2010 Misbah Siddique photo by Amelia Gregory
Misbah Siddique.

FAD junior awards 2010 Zandra Rhodes photo by Amelia Gregory
And another completely gratuitous shot of Zandra because this post isn’t long enough already. Because I WUV HER.

Categories ,Abigail Daker, ,Abigail Nottingham, ,Adam Preece, ,Andre Augusto, ,Antonia Parker, ,Barbara Ana Gomez, ,Charlie Ibouillie, ,Chelsey Ward, ,City & Islington College, ,David Short, ,European Fashion Designer Competition, ,FAD, ,FAD Junior Awards, ,Fashion Scout, ,Florence Melrose, ,Freemasons’ Hall, ,Karmen-Marie Parker, ,Katie Grand, ,Kila Kitu, ,lfw, ,London Fashion Week, ,Lucy Jones, ,M&S, ,Misbah Siddique, ,Natalie Goreham, ,Paul Vasileff, ,Prash London, ,Prash Muraleetharan, ,Rebecca Glyn-Blanco, ,Salford City College, ,Sarah Kilkenny, ,Shahira Bakhoum, ,Shomari Williams, ,Sinead Cloonan, ,Susan Aubrey-Cound, ,The Face, ,University of East London, ,va, ,Yashodah Rodgers, ,Zandra Rhodes

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Amelia’s Magazine | London Fashion Week: 2010 FAD Junior Awards

FADAwards-the tightrope walker-Florence Melrose by-Barbara-Ana-G
The Tightrope Walker – an illustration of a dress designed by Florence Melrose, illustrated by Barbara Ana Gomez.

I’m a bit rubbish when it actually comes to checking what’s what during fashion week – I will generally go to most things that I’m invited to on the grounds that if someone has bothered to invite me then I should generally return the honour by actually turning up. Not so most magazine editors I might add – many was the time that I would swan into a fashion show under the guise of Katie Grand at The Face. She never went, and yours truly got the golden tickets.

FAD awards SS2011 - abi daker
Dress by Rebecca Glyn-Blanco of Camden School for Girls. Illustration by Abigail Daker.

FADAwards Keep it secret-by-Barbara-Ana-Gomez
Keep it Secret – illustration of a dress by Sinead Cloonan from City & Islington College by Barbara Ana Gomez.

And as I’ve already mentioned I don’t do queues – not in Tescos, and certainly not during fashion week. To this end my heart sank as I rounded the corner to Freemasons’ Hall and found a line of people streaming down the street. What was this FAD awards malarkey anyway? Heading to the front of the queue I waggled my ticket at an unknown PR person and hoped for the best, so was somewhat surprised to be informed in hushed tones that I was a VIP and could go straight on through. Upstairs in one of the many architecturally fabulous chambers, Matt and I sipped on sweet fizzy stuff as we tried to figure out what this was all about.

FAD-Awards-sketches-Amelias-Magazine-by-kila_kitu
FAD-Awards 2010-Kila Kitu
Dress by Yashodah Rodgers as illustrated by Kila Kitu.

Apparently we’ve been very supportive of FAD in the past, and once I’d looked up our previous coverage it did suddenly all ring a bell. But I wasn’t quite prepared for the sheer unadulterated upbeat joy of this event. Right in the thick of a hectic fashion week it’s a true testament to the achievement of this organisation that I could sit through yet another long catwalk show and come out the other end beaming with goodwill.

LFW_FAD_Awards_Abigail_Nottingham
The European Fashion Designer award winning dress from Paul Vasileff and Shahira Bakhoum. Illustrated by Abigail Nottingham.

FADAwards Flower-Rebecca Glyn-Blanco by-Barbara-Ana-G
Rebecca Glyn-Blanco by Barbara Ana Gomez.

Just to recap quickly, FAD stands for Fashion Awareness Direct and it is a charity that aims to empower young people – as the brochure says “Fashion is a great way to connect with young people from different backgrounds, to give them confidence and raise their aspirations for the future.”

FAD awards SS2011 - Adam Preece by Abi Daker
Adam Preece by Abigail Daker.

LFW_FAD_awards Chelsey Ward by Abigail-Nottingham
Chelsey Ward by Abigail Nottingham.

Last year we covered the undergraduates awards show, but this year we were in for a much younger treat: the FAD Junior Awards showcased the designs of finalists chosen from 130 teenagers aged 16-19. Yes dear reader, you may well have to keep pinching yourself as you take a look through the images. I know I did, and I was sitting right there when they paraded past. Created over the course of five days at the University of East London with the help of an experienced team of tutors, the outfits put together by these young designers would put many graduates to shame.

LFW_FAD_Awards Karmen-Marie Parker by Abigail_Nottingham
Karmen-Marie Parker by Abigail Nottingham.

FAD-Awards-Natalie Goreham by-kila_kitu
Natalie Goreham by Kila Kitu.

To start off the evening’s events previous finalist Prash Muraleetharan took to the stage with a bit of confident advice, endearingly delivered. “It’s what you do with this moment which determines a winner…. so get upstairs and network,” he advised, somewhat sagely. At the end he winked. And I’m sure he winked at me. Blimey… what a charmer… it’s quite hard to countenance that Prash must still be a teenager, and yet he already runs his own fashion label with a website and everything.

FAD junior awards 2010 photo by Amelia Gregory
Prash Muraleetharan dispels his words of wisdom at the start of the ceremony. All photography by Amelia Gregory.

After the V&A inspired catwalk show we had speeches from the sleek Susan Aubrey-Cound of M&S and Lucy Jones of UEL, followed by the prizegiving by the extremely fabulous Zandra Rhodes, who is *the cutest* when she smiles! The winners and their parents looked so overwhelmed it really did warm the cockles of my jaded fashionista heart.

Zandra-Rhodes-FAD-Awards-2010-Antonia-Parker-Amelias-Magazine-A
Zandra Rhodes by Antonia Parker. I wuv her.

FAD junior awards 2010 photo by Amelia Gregory
Paul Vasileff and Shahira Bakhoum of Milan step up first to take the prize for the European Fashion Designer Competition, which was the culmination of a two year project.

FAD junior awards 2010 photo by Amelia Gregory
Karmen-Marie Parker with her winning design shortly before she burst into tears… aw, bless.

FAD junior awards 2010 photo by Amelia Gregory
Andre Augusto: pattern cutting award winner.

FAD junior awards 2010 photo by Amelia Gregory
Research award winner Sarah Kilkenny.

FAD junior awards 2010 photo by Amelia Gregory
17 year old David Short – the first boy to become overall winner and a proper little fashionista in the making.

Within this blog you’ll find my favourite pieces to hit the runway – and just remember, they were all designed and made by 16-19 year olds. Quite astonishing I’m sure you’ll agree.

FAD junior awards 2010 Shomari Williams photo by Amelia Gregory
Shomari Williams.

FAD junior awards 2010 Emily Rogers photo by Amelia Gregory
Yashodah Rodgers.

FAD junior awards 2010 Charlie Ibouillie photo by Amelia Gregory
Charlie Ibouillie.

FAD junior awards 2010 Sinead Cloonan photo by Amelia Gregory
Sinead Cloonan.

FAD junior awards 2010 European winners photo by Amelia Gregory
FAD junior awards 2010 European winners photo by Amelia Gregory
The winner of the European competition.

FAD junior awards 2010 Rebecca Glyn-Blanco photo by Amelia Gregory
Rebecca Glyn-Blanco.

FAD junior awards 2010 Natalie Goreham photo by Amelia Gregory
Natalie Goreham.

FAD junior awards 2010 Florence Melrose photo by Amelia Gregory
Florence Melrose.

FAD junior awards 2010 Misbah Siddique photo by Amelia Gregory
Misbah Siddique.

FAD junior awards 2010 Zandra Rhodes photo by Amelia Gregory
And another completely gratuitous shot of Zandra because this post isn’t long enough already. Because I WUV HER.

Categories ,Abigail Daker, ,Abigail Nottingham, ,Adam Preece, ,Andre Augusto, ,Antonia Parker, ,Barbara Ana Gomez, ,Charlie Ibouillie, ,Chelsey Ward, ,City & Islington College, ,David Short, ,European Fashion Designer Competition, ,FAD, ,FAD Junior Awards, ,Fashion Scout, ,Florence Melrose, ,Freemasons’ Hall, ,Karmen-Marie Parker, ,Katie Grand, ,Kila Kitu, ,lfw, ,London Fashion Week, ,Lucy Jones, ,M&S, ,Misbah Siddique, ,Natalie Goreham, ,Paul Vasileff, ,Prash London, ,Prash Muraleetharan, ,Rebecca Glyn-Blanco, ,Salford City College, ,Sarah Kilkenny, ,Shahira Bakhoum, ,Shomari Williams, ,Sinead Cloonan, ,Susan Aubrey-Cound, ,The Face, ,University of East London, ,va, ,Yashodah Rodgers, ,Zandra Rhodes

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Amelia’s Magazine | London Fashion Week A/W 2010 Catwalk Review: Topman

Topman, ed story hottest ticket in town!

Topman front row by Pearl Law.
Topman front row by Pearl Law.

You don’t believe me? Why, find dosage then you don’t understand the nature of fashion. Here was the only show where the menswear fashion mafia were out in force. The magnitude of control that the Topshop empire now wields over British fashion cannot be underestimated: between Philip Green, dosage Kate Moss and a huge amount of sponsorship Topshop practically IS British Fashion. Still don’t believe me? Then check out the rollcall of new designers that Topshop sponsored as part of New Gen this year, proudly announced in the foyer of the BFC tents like a litany of high achieving academics proudly etched into the wood panels of a university. They represent the very best of the new young designers working in Britain now, but the sad fact is that they will almost certainly be ripped off by the very monster that raised them. How else does Topshop make it’s obscene profits? And don’t even get me started on their ethical practices.

The menswear editors certainly aren’t here because they’re looking forward to the best collection of the entire week. They’re here to keep happy one of their biggest advertisers / the company that pays their consultancy fees. And Mr. Fatcat Philip Green himself can be found shortly before the show holding court in the press room, magnanimously chortling with some pretty young fashionista before taking his position in the front row, smiling contentedly, the lord of his dominion.

I know many of the menswear crew because of my past career as a stylist (for many years merely a fashion cupboard ‘monkey’ and thereafter as a stylist’s assistant) within this niche industry. I loved working as a menswear stylist – it wasn’t so fraught with the pinickety bitching and temper tantrums of womenswear, and the male models were a lot more fun. Even though there is now a dedicated menswear day at London Fashion Week it remains a very small part of the industry by comparison and many of the people I learnt my ‘craft’ alongside have now become highly influential, unsure how to treat me… the one who went off on an entirely independent tangent and has since become a mere speck on the edge of the menswear world.

Topman. Photography by Amelia Gregory

The menswear crew of old sit in the front row opposite me, perfectly lined up like a row of duckies at the fair. First there’s Andrew Davis, sporting his best miserable face. We both started out in the Arena fashion cupboard as minions at the bottom of the heap, but Andrew learnt the art of sycophancy much better than I ever did and quickly rose to the position of Fashion Director for both Arena and Arena Homme Plus magazines. He now consults and styles for many large fashion brands across the world. He’s always looked young, a small ginger lad in a baseball cap, but he was old (29) even when he started out in this business, which just shows where blinding ambition will get you if you’re focused enough. Never let age be a barrier in fashion, especially if you look and act young.

Next to him Steve Beale – who is always chatty to me bless his soul – is now embedded in the bowels of uber lads’ mag FHM, where his career seems to be defined by a relentless quest for self-improvement. It was not always thus; he began life as founding editor of the cult underground magazine Sleaze Nation in the mid 90s… before the lure of cash from a proper job beckoned.

Daryoush Haj-Najafi was working as a barman in the then fantastically trendy Bricklayers Arms in the centre of Shoreditch when Shazzy Thomas, my then boss at The Face (I’d moved fashion cupboards in the Wagadon stable by then) decided he was cute and got him in as an intern in the late 90s. Thus his career began and he now writes extremely funny blogs about fashion for Vice Magazine. Hywel Davies offered me great encouragement at the start of my career – especially when I moved into photography – and used to hire me as a stylist, photographer and writer many years ago, again for Sleaze Nation. He is now a senior lecturer in fashion and has written the fashion tomes Modern Menswear and British Fashion Designers in recent years. Last in our round-up is Way Perry, a well-known stylist and menswear editor of Wonderland Magazine.

They will no doubt be among those who write glowing things about Topman: for them it’s the only way. But I have no such allegiances. Despite knowing many senior people in the Topman marketing and press team, they are one (of many) large advertisers who resolutely failed to support Amelia’s Magazine: in fact you could blame them for the downfall of the print version because if they’d jumped on board I may well have had many other advertisers, such is their power. And they continue to show no interest in what I do, so I can say about the collection what I like. And I will.

Named Berlin Boys this collection was dreariness personified – a feeling echoed in the faces of those opposite me. Styled by the perfectly respectable Alistair Mackie, all sense of excitement had been bled from the collection, just like the spidery tie-dyed silhouette trees bleeding across an apocalyptic reddened sky. On our seats had been placed a glossy little notebook that matched the invite we’d been sent, and this was quite frankly the most exciting bit of design I could see in the vicinity. I just don’t get it. Why not use a catwalk show as an excuse to create something more inspiring? Why does it have to be this way? Even from the second row I could see how cheaply made the clothes are, and how on earth did they find/force so many boys to adopt peroxide blonde hair for the show? Were they paid handsomely for the ordeal? I’ve seen the look so many times before.

Topman by Antonia Parker.
Topman. Illustration by Antonia Parker.

Topman. Photography by Amelia Gregory
Topman. All photography by Amelia Gregory.

Topman. Photography by Amelia Gregory
Topman by Antonia Parker.
Topman. Illustration by Antonia Parker.

Topman. Photography by Amelia Gregory
Topman. Photography by Amelia Gregory
Topman by Antonia Parker.
Topman. Illustration by Antonia Parker.

But none of it matters, because Topshop and Topman will continue to ‘support’ young designers as they start out on their tricky career in the notoriously fickle world of fashion, and people will continue to buy Topshop’s clothes, both good and bad. It matters not a jot what they choose to send down the catwalk. Mores the pity, for the megalith organisation that is Topshop could effect so much more good in this industry if it chose to. And I’m not just referring to design. Don’t even get me started on their ethical practices…

Categories ,Alistair Mackie, ,Berlin Boys, ,BFC Tent, ,Bricklayers Arms, ,Daryoush Haj-Najafi, ,FHM, ,Hywel Davies, ,Kate Moss, ,Mr. Fatcat, ,New Gen, ,Philip Green, ,Shazzy Thomas, ,shoreditch, ,Sleaze Nation, ,Somerset House, ,Steve Beale, ,The Face, ,Topman, ,topshop, ,Vice Magazine, ,Wagadon, ,Way Perry, ,Wonderland Magazine

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Amelia’s Magazine | Corrie Nielsen: London Fashion Week A/W 2012 Catwalk Review

Corrie Nielsen A/W 2012 by Gaarte
Corrie Nielsen A/W 2012 by Gaarte.

London Fashion Week kicked off for me this year with a brilliant showing from Corrie Nielsen, who looked to the Scottish Highlands for inspiration in Vestiarium Scoticum. Named for an infamous book describing the provenance of Scottish tartans, this collection harks back to Corrie’s long lost heritage: her ancestor John S. Burns emigrated to America during the Revolutionary War and this collection is dedicated to both him and her grandmother Tollie.

Corrie Nielsen AW 2012  photography by Amelia Gregory
Corrie Nielsen AW 2012  photography by Amelia Gregory
Corrie Nielsen AW 2012  photography by Amelia Gregory
Corrie Nielsen AW 2012  photography by Amelia Gregory
Corrie Nielsen AW 2012  photography by Amelia Gregory
Corrie Nielsen AW 2012  photography by Amelia Gregory
Corrie Nielsen A/W 2012 by Gaarte
Corrie Nielsen A/W 2012 by Gaarte.

Vestiarium Scoticum opened with a bold red tartan dress, adorned with asymmetrical panels of black chiffon ruffles. Hair was tied back into a sleek low bun with ‘face lace’ fretwork painted across the side of the foreheads by Phyllis Cohen. Buns are big for A/W 2012, you heard it here first.

Corrie Nielsen AW 2012  photography by Amelia Gregory
Corrie Nielsen AW 2012  photography by Amelia Gregory
Corrie Nielsen AW 2012  photography by Amelia Gregory
Corrie Nielsen AW 2012  photography by Amelia Gregory
Corrie Nielsen by Angelica Moreno
Corrie Nielsen A/W 2012 by Angelica Moreno.

Beautifully tailored creamy blouses were buttoned high at the neck to offset supremely wearable tartan separates with a lady like feeling of propriety. In contrast a girly pleated tartan skirt was paired with a gauzy polka dot blouse, knee high post box red socks and flat shoes.

Corrie Nielsen AW 2012  photography by Amelia Gregory
Corrie Nielsen AW 2012  photography by Amelia Gregory
I was particularly enamoured of the hair pieces by milliner Emma Yeo, which featured fine laser cut wood that echoed the long tapered pheasant feathers.

Corrie Nielsen AW 2012  photography by Amelia Gregory
Corrie Nielsen AW 2012  photography by Amelia Gregory
This season the key focus was on a draped shawl shape that crumpled in waterfall-like waves across the torso, or swung jauntily across shoulders to culminate in finely structured peplums jutting from the waist, a favourite shape of Corrie Nielsen‘s.

Corrie Neilsen A/W 2012 by Sam Parr
Corrie Neilsen A/W 2012 by Sam Parr.

Corrie Nielsen AW 2012  photography by Amelia Gregory
Corrie Nielsen AW 2012  photography by Amelia Gregory
Corrie Nielsen AW 2012  photography by Amelia Gregory
Corrie Neilsen Check Skirt by Sam Parr
Corrie Neilsen A/W 2012 by Sam Parr.

The last two dresses featured the huge extravagant tumbles of fabric for which Corrie Nielsen has become famed, gloriously theatrical showstoppers with tiny waists and sweeping trains. Not for nothing has Corrie Nielsen become the heir apparent to the Westwood crown.

Corrie Nielson A/W 2012 by Carol Ryder
Corrie Nielson A/W 2012 by Carol Ryder.

All photography by Amelia Gregory.

Categories ,A/W 2012, ,Angelica Moreno, ,BFC Showspace, ,Carol Ryder, ,Corrie Nielsen, ,Emma Yeo, ,Face Lace, ,Forward PR, ,Gaarte, ,Gabriel Ayala, ,Gazelli, ,John S Burns, ,lfw, ,millinery, ,Peplum, ,Phyllis Cohen, ,Revolutionary War, ,Ruffles, ,Sam Parr, ,scotland, ,Sheer, ,Tartan, ,Tollie Burns, ,Vestiarium Scoticum, ,Vivienne Westwood

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Amelia’s Magazine | Pick Me Up Contemporary Graphic Art Fair 2011: James Jarvis speaks at Mokita

Wisdom of Caleb bare leaves

James Jarvis spoke at Mokita, viagra dosage where he was asked to address the role of illustration in commerce. The insights below have been put together from comments he made both in his talk and in the following conversation with others on the panel of Mokita.

James Jarvis Degree Show poster
James Jarvis’ Brighton Degree Show poster.

A character artist.
The baggage of being an illustrator is confusing so he prefers to think of himself as a graphic artist. His job is a journey into self awareness. He recently found his old degree graduation poster and realised that you can see his style developing even then, more about when it was all done by hand. He has become very well known for drawing funny characters in depressing situations but he doesn’t like being seen as a character artist only.

Sole Inspector by James Jarvis
Sole Inspector by James Jarvis.

He knew the route.
James’ mother was an art history tutor and he knew he wanted to be an illustrator from an early age. The plan was to make kids’ books but nobody wanted his work and editorial art directors thought he was too kiddy in style, viagra so he was stuck in no mans land. But he was accepted within the skateboarding world, where his work was discovered by the forward thinking art directors at The Face. He was lucky in that his images were companions to the articles, and he didn’t really have to answer any briefs. The magazine was a massively influential shop window that gave him credibility in the mainstream.

Caleb toys by James Jarvis for Amos
Caleb toys by James Jarvis for Amos.

ATP Amos concert poster
An Amos collaboration with ATP music festival.

People just want funny characters.
From working with The Face he became involved with clothing brand Silas, and together they created a toy to publicise the brand. It became an object in its own right and soon after he started Amos, his own toy making company; it doesn’t make him much money but he is involved with lots of other projects as a result: he now makes films, t-shirts and curates music festivals. He wants his characters to be more than just toys, avatars for a more substantial world. Even now though, many years later, advertisers still just want to buy into his associations with Streetwear culture and The Face; everyone wants a potato head character. For instance he’s currently working on something to celebrate the 125th anniversary of Coca-Cola. Only the most enlightened art directors ask for something different and new: most just want something he produced a long time ago so it’s up to him to keep pushing ideas forward.

James Jarvis lino printJames Jarvis lino printJames Jarvis lino printJames Jarvis lino printJames Jarvis lino print
James Jarvis lino prints. Available to buy online here.

Self publish for sanity.
Making products is a different world to the one of illustration. He started to make ‘plastic illustrations’ from his toys but soon found that he was getting farther and farther away from his unmoderated link to thought. So much intermediate process meant he was at danger of losing his core spirit so to keep sane he now maintains a practice of self published work, which he publishes online. For example he’s been very disciplined, creating The Wisdom of Caleb, a daily cartoon strip for 150 days (this has now been taken offline). He rejoices if he gets a few hundred hits – but it’s important to build up an audience over time, and if you keep your conviction then the work will find that validity. The comic strips are very basic, with no retouching.

wisdom of caleb worksheetWisdom of Caleb safe squirrelWisdom of Caleb
Cartoons for the Wisdom of Caleb.

Back to basics.
He’s been inspired by Roger Hargreaves to create some very minimal characters. He has also been creating a lino print every week in editions of seven, which provides a grassroots connection with his audience that is direct and democratic. He sells the prints directly and finds there’s an honesty in taking them to the post office himself. He’s aware that he’s “highly involved with filling the world with plastic” and it makes him quite uncomfortable. He likes the simplicity and honesty of making things by hand at home, such as resin figures – and using the web to sell them direct. This kind of work never felt accessible when he was at college.

James Jarvis lino work
Working with lino print. All images courtesy of James Jarvis, more can be seen on Flickr.

His greatest hits.
He has sold 10,000 toys over the years and he’s grateful for that because there’s a bond with his audience. He would be stupid not to engage with what people want. But James also concedes admits that he has been massively lucky – tons of people at college were better drawers, and his success has been as much down to circumstance as being clever.

amos_plastic_workshop_london-portrait
James Jarvis hosts the Amos Miniature Plastic Workshop at KK outlet in Hoxton between 6-31 May, 2011.

Pick Me Up runs until Sunday 27th March. Read a more in depth article about Mokita here and my transcript of a conversation with Sam Arthur of Nobrow here.

Categories ,Amos, ,Amos Miniature Plastic Workshop, ,atp, ,Character, ,Coca-Cola, ,Graphic Artist, ,illustrator, ,James Jarvis, ,Jim Jarvis, ,KK Outlet, ,Mascot, ,Mokita, ,Outlet, ,Pick Me Up, ,Plastic, ,Roger Hargreave, ,Silas, ,skateboarding, ,Somerset House, ,streetwear, ,The Face, ,Toys, ,Wisdom of Caleb

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Amelia’s Magazine | In conversation with Neville Brody at the V&A


Illustration by Daria Hlazatova

Fashion illustration. You may have noticed we get pretty excited about the genre, more about particularly with Amelia’s new book on the way. Drawing Fashion at the Design Museum has been hotly anticipated and it doesn’t let down. Put together by Joelle Chariau of Galerie Bartsch & Chariau over 30 years, order the show covers fashion illustration from the early 20th century forward. The present installment at the Design Museum is the first time the collection has been shown together.

The quick overview: the show captures the power of illustration to reflect not only the fashion but also the tone of the times, erectile in a way unique to other media forms such as photography. It proves that although photography has become the predominant media from the 1930s, illustration still holds a valid and special place in fashion. 

The longer version: split into five eras, the exhibit focuses the viewer to the changing role of fashion illustration and its connection to the culture it is a part of. The first, From Gold to Silver 1910-29, captures the optimism and new worldviews of the early 20th century with bold use of colours, a new vibrancy and a focus on lifestyle in the illustrations. The single figures of Erté, the Vogue and La Gazette du Bon Ton George Lepape covers bring out the new silhoette of the 1920s. Stylised illustrations celebrate the lifestyles that few could afford, but which encapsulate post war enthusiasm. The highlight here: George Lepape’s Chapeaux D’Hiver for Le Bon Ton in pen, ink and watercolour, showing both the original and use in editorial. 

Moving forward to 1930-46, the tone of Time & Decay reflects the changing times: the depression, the movement of focus from Paris to America during the war years, the popularity of the cinema and a focus on leisure and sportswear in fashion. This more casual tone is brought through the illustration, with looser strokes, more muted colours and more introspective compositions. This section highlights the talent of Bernard Blossac and René Bouché

Enthusiasm returns in New Rhythms, New Rules 1947-59, introducing Dior‘s ‘New Look‘ in 1947. The illustrations of Réne Gruau perfectly capture the ‘exagerated elegance’ of Dior’s bold new style. His bold use of colour and line, with a predominance of red, white, back and orchre shine through this section of the exhibit. The timelessness of the illustrations is highlighted by a Vogue Paris cover illustration, first published in the 1950s, republished for the Juin/Juillet 1985 edition, that would look equally contemporary today. Another highlight is a single pink glove, showing a movement from full figure to individual detail and objects of the body. 


Antonio Lopez

The true star of the show is Antonio (Lopez), the sole focus of Liberty & Licence, taking the viewer through 1960-89. Anotonio’s bold graphics in pencil and watercolour celebrate the dynamic feminism of the 1970s and especially the 1980s. This is power illustration to the max, matching the era’s power dressing with big shoulders, tight waists and attitudes to match. Hitting the mood of each decade, Antonio’s style adapts through the 1960s-80s, with a focus on form and art. 


François Berthoud

The exhibit concludes with The Tradition Continues 1990-2010 and Fashion Drawing for the Future. The illustrations chosen in this section react against ‘the cult of the individual’ and big budget commerciality of fashion and advertising. Matts Gustafson and François Berthoud show new paths forward in terms of form and technique. Bethaud’s Allure de Chanel for Rebel, France (enamel on paper) reduces the figure to positive and negative forms.


Mats Gustafson

Overall, illustrations are more moody and suggestive and are often simplified to form, colour and movement. An Aurore de la Morinere for Christian Lacroix published in Süddeutsche Zeitung Magazine loses the form of figure and clothes to a shimmer of colours, becoming etherial and fantasy rather than any depiction of the body. A dark illustration for Alexander McQueen with the figure walking away from the viewer and displayed alone poignently reminds of the loss of this fashion great. 

There is currently a resurgence of interest in fashion illustration and Drawing Fashion celebrates this. With any retrospective, it’s difficult to cover everything and there are a few illustrators missing – notably David Downton who we interviewed recently. The exhibition, however, demonstrates illustration’s power to take the viewer beyond the simple display of clothes and connecting what we wear with the mood, ideologies and changing tides of the 20th century.

Illustration by Daria Hlazatova

Fashion illustration. You may have noticed we get pretty excited about the genre, pharm particularly with Amelia’s new book on the way. Drawing Fashion at the Design Museum has been hotly anticipated and it doesn’t let down. Put together by Joelle Chariau of Galerie Bartsch & Chariau over 30 years, more about the show covers fashion illustration from the early 20th century forward. The present installment at the Design Museum is the first time the collection has been shown together.

The quick overview: the show captures the power of illustration to reflect not only the fashion but also the tone of the times, order in a way unique to other media forms such as photography. It proves that although photography has become the predominant media from the 1930s, illustration still holds a valid and special place in fashion. 


George Lepape

The longer version: split into five eras, the exhibit focuses the viewer to the changing role of fashion illustration and its connection to the culture it is a part of. The first, From Gold to Silver 1910-29, captures the optimism and new worldviews of the early 20th century with bold use of colours, a new vibrancy and a focus on lifestyle in the illustrations. The single figures of Erté, the Vogue and La Gazette du Bon Ton George Lepape covers bring out the new silhoette of the 1920s. Stylised illustrations celebrate the lifestyles that few could afford, but which encapsulate post war enthusiasm. The highlight here: George Lepape’s Chapeaux D’Hiver for Le Bon Ton in pen, ink and watercolour, showing both the original and use in editorial. 

Moving forward to 1930-46, the tone of Time & Decay reflects the changing times: the depression, the movement of focus from Paris to America during the war years, the popularity of the cinema and a focus on leisure and sportswear in fashion. This more casual tone is brought through the illustration, with looser strokes, more muted colours and more introspective compositions. This section highlights the talent of Bernard Blossac and René Bouché


René Gruau

Enthusiasm returns in New Rhythms, New Rules 1947-59, introducing Dior‘s ‘New Look‘ in 1947. The illustrations of Réne Gruau perfectly capture the ‘exagerated elegance’ of Dior’s bold new style. His bold use of colour and line, with a predominance of red, white, back and orchre shine through this section of the exhibit. The timelessness of the illustrations is highlighted by a Vogue Paris cover illustration, first published in the 1950s, republished for the Juin/Juillet 1985 edition, that would look equally contemporary today. Another highlight is a single pink glove, showing a movement from full figure to individual detail and objects of the body. 


Antonio Lopez

The true star of the show is Antonio (Lopez), the sole focus of Liberty & Licence, taking the viewer through 1960-89. Anotonio’s bold graphics in pencil and watercolour celebrate the dynamic feminism of the 1970s and especially the 1980s. This is power illustration to the max, matching the era’s power dressing with big shoulders, tight waists and attitudes to match. Hitting the mood of each decade, Antonio’s style adapts through the 1960s-80s, with a focus on form and art. 


François Berthoud

The exhibit concludes with The Tradition Continues 1990-2010 and Fashion Drawing for the Future. The illustrations chosen in this section react against ‘the cult of the individual’ and big budget commerciality of fashion and advertising. Matts Gustafson and François Berthoud show new paths forward in terms of form and technique. Bethaud’s Allure de Chanel for Rebel, France (enamel on paper) reduces the figure to positive and negative forms.


Mats Gustafson

Overall, illustrations are more moody and suggestive and are often simplified to form, colour and movement. An Aurore de la Morinere for Christian Lacroix published in Süddeutsche Zeitung Magazine loses the form of figure and clothes to a shimmer of colours, becoming etherial and fantasy rather than any depiction of the body. A dark illustration for Alexander McQueen with the figure walking away from the viewer and displayed alone poignently reminds of the loss of this fashion great. 

There is currently a resurgence of interest in fashion illustration and Drawing Fashion celebrates this. With any retrospective, it’s difficult to cover everything and there are a few illustrators missing – notably David Downton who we interviewed recently. The exhibition, however, demonstrates illustration’s power to take the viewer beyond the simple display of clothes and connecting what we wear with the mood, ideologies and changing tides of the 20th century.

Illustration by Daria Hlazatova

Fashion illustration. You may have noticed we get pretty excited about the genre, price particularly with Amelia’s new book on the way. Drawing Fashion at the Design Museum has been hotly anticipated and it doesn’t let down. Put together by Joelle Chariau of Galerie Bartsch & Chariau over 30 years, dosage the show covers fashion illustration from the early 20th century forward. The present installment at the Design Museum is the first time the collection has been shown together.

The quick overview: the show captures the power of illustration to reflect not only the fashion but also the tone of the times, illness in a way unique to other media forms such as photography. It proves that although photography has become the predominant media from the 1930s, illustration still holds a valid and special place in fashion. 


George Lepape

The longer version: split into five eras, the exhibit focuses the viewer to the changing role of fashion illustration and its connection to the culture it is a part of. The first, From Gold to Silver 1910-29, captures the optimism and new worldviews of the early 20th century with bold use of colours, a new vibrancy and a focus on lifestyle in the illustrations. The single figures of Erté, the Vogue and La Gazette du Bon Ton George Lepape covers bring out the new silhoette of the 1920s. Stylised illustrations celebrate the lifestyles that few could afford, but which encapsulate post war enthusiasm. The highlight here: George Lepape’s Chapeaux D’Hiver for Le Bon Ton in pen, ink and watercolour, showing both the original and use in editorial. 

Moving forward to 1930-46, the tone of Time & Decay reflects the changing times: the depression, the movement of focus from Paris to America during the war years, the popularity of the cinema and a focus on leisure and sportswear in fashion. This more casual tone is brought through the illustration, with looser strokes, more muted colours and more introspective compositions. This section highlights the talent of Bernard Blossac and René Bouché


René Gruau

Enthusiasm returns in New Rhythms, New Rules 1947-59, introducing Dior‘s ‘New Look‘ in 1947. The illustrations of Réne Gruau perfectly capture the ‘exagerated elegance’ of Dior’s bold new style. His bold use of colour and line, with a predominance of red, white, back and orchre shine through this section of the exhibit. The timelessness of the illustrations is highlighted by a Vogue Paris cover illustration, first published in the 1950s, republished for the Juin/Juillet 1985 edition, that would look equally contemporary today. Another highlight is a single pink glove, showing a movement from full figure to individual detail and objects of the body. 


Antonio Lopez

The true star of the show is Antonio (Lopez), the sole focus of Liberty & Licence, taking the viewer through 1960-89. Anotonio’s bold graphics in pencil and watercolour celebrate the dynamic feminism of the 1970s and especially the 1980s. This is power illustration to the max, matching the era’s power dressing with big shoulders, tight waists and attitudes to match. Hitting the mood of each decade, Antonio’s style adapts through the 1960s-80s, with a focus on form and art. 


François Berthoud

The exhibit concludes with The Tradition Continues 1990-2010 and Fashion Drawing for the Future. The illustrations chosen in this section react against ‘the cult of the individual’ and big budget commerciality of fashion and advertising. Matts Gustafson and François Berthoud show new paths forward in terms of form and technique. Bethaud’s Allure de Chanel for Rebel, France (enamel on paper) reduces the figure to positive and negative forms.


Mats Gustafson

Overall, illustrations are more moody and suggestive and are often simplified to form, colour and movement. An Aurore de la Morinere for Christian Lacroix published in Süddeutsche Zeitung Magazine loses the form of figure and clothes to a shimmer of colours, becoming etherial and fantasy rather than any depiction of the body. A dark illustration for Alexander McQueen with the figure walking away from the viewer and displayed alone poignently reminds of the loss of this fashion great. 

There is currently a resurgence of interest in fashion illustration and Drawing Fashion celebrates this. With any retrospective, it’s difficult to cover everything and there are a few illustrators missing – notably David Downton who we interviewed recently. The exhibition, however, demonstrates illustration’s power to take the viewer beyond the simple display of clothes and connecting what we wear with the mood, ideologies and changing tides of the 20th century.

Illustration by Daria Hlazatova

Fashion illustration. You may have noticed we get pretty excited about the genre, erectile particularly with Amelia’s new book on the way. Drawing Fashion at the Design Museum has been hotly anticipated and it doesn’t let down. Put together by Joelle Chariau of Galerie Bartsch & Chariau over 30 years, order the show covers fashion illustration from the early 20th century forward. The present installment at the Design Museum is the first time the collection has been shown together.

The quick overview: the show captures the power of illustration to reflect not only the fashion but also the tone of the times, in a way unique to other media forms such as photography. It proves that although photography has become the predominant media from the 1930s, illustration still holds a valid and special place in fashion. 


George Lepape

The longer version: split into five eras, the exhibit focuses the viewer to the changing role of fashion illustration and its connection to the culture it is a part of. The first, From Gold to Silver 1910-29, captures the optimism and new worldviews of the early 20th century with bold use of colours, a new vibrancy and a focus on lifestyle in the illustrations. The single figures of Erté, the Vogue and La Gazette du Bon Ton George Lepape covers bring out the new silhoette of the 1920s. Stylised illustrations celebrate the lifestyles that few could afford, but which encapsulate post war enthusiasm. The highlight here: George Lepape’s Chapeaux D’Hiver for Le Bon Ton in pen, ink and watercolour, showing both the original and use in editorial. 

Moving forward to 1930-46, the tone of Time & Decay reflects the changing times: the depression, the movement of focus from Paris to America during the war years, the popularity of the cinema and a focus on leisure and sportswear in fashion. This more casual tone is brought through the illustration, with looser strokes, more muted colours and more introspective compositions. This section highlights the talent of Bernard Blossac and René Bouché


René Gruau

Enthusiasm returns in New Rhythms, New Rules 1947-59, introducing Dior‘s ‘New Look‘ in 1947. The illustrations of Réne Gruau perfectly capture the ‘exagerated elegance’ of Dior’s bold new style. His bold use of colour and line, with a predominance of red, white, back and orchre shine through this section of the exhibit. The timelessness of the illustrations is highlighted by a Vogue Paris cover illustration, first published in the 1950s, republished for the Juin/Juillet 1985 edition, that would look equally contemporary today. Another highlight is a single pink glove, showing a movement from full figure to individual detail and objects of the body. 


Antonio Lopez

The true star of the show is Antonio (Lopez), the sole focus of Liberty & Licence, taking the viewer through 1960-89. Anotonio’s bold graphics in pencil and watercolour celebrate the dynamic feminism of the 1970s and especially the 1980s. This is power illustration to the max, matching the era’s power dressing with big shoulders, tight waists and attitudes to match. Hitting the mood of each decade, Antonio’s style adapts through the 1960s-80s, with a focus on form and art. 


François Berthoud

The exhibit concludes with The Tradition Continues 1990-2010 and Fashion Drawing for the Future. The illustrations chosen in this section react against ‘the cult of the individual’ and big budget commerciality of fashion and advertising. Matts Gustafson and François Berthoud show new paths forward in terms of form and technique. Berthoud’s Allure de Chanel for Rebel, France (enamel on paper) reduces the figure to positive and negative forms.


Mats Gustafson

Overall, illustrations are more moody and suggestive and are often simplified to form, colour and movement. An Aurore de la Morinere for Christian Lacroix published in Süddeutsche Zeitung Magazine loses the form of figure and clothes to a shimmer of colours, becoming etherial and fantasy rather than any depiction of the body. A dark illustration for Alexander McQueen with the figure walking away from the viewer and displayed alone poignently reminds of the loss of this fashion great. 

There is currently a resurgence of interest in fashion illustration and Drawing Fashion celebrates this. With any retrospective, it’s difficult to cover everything and there are a few illustrators missing – notably David Downton who we interviewed recently. The exhibition, however, demonstrates illustration’s power to take the viewer beyond the simple display of clothes and connecting what we wear with the mood, ideologies and changing tides of the 20th century.

Neville Brody, case illustrated by Anna Hancock-Young

On the wonderful Friday evening of the 12th of the 11th of the 10th I managed to make my way to the V&A for the third week running. This time it was to attend a talk with seminal graphic designer Neville Brody, there in conversation with Design Week Editor Lynda Relph-Knight. The subject of conversation moved away from Brody’s work and instead centred on this week’s student protests and the future of creativity in the present political and social times, neatly summised by Brody as “a bunch of cuts”. You can make your own decision to whether he was refering to the cuts or the government making them.  

The conversation was loose and while Brody was well prepared (despite his own claims he wasn’t) he allowed the evening to take its own course, flipping between pictures of the student march, the Anti-Design Festival, Brody’s exhibit in Tokyo, his work on Arena Homme+ and other work by Research Studios. Here is an attempt to sumarise this flow of thought…

Coming to fame in the 1980s as Art Director of The Face magazine, Brody took the march on Whitehall as an opportunity to reflect on events of the 1980s and the explosion of creativity that the similarly troubling times let loose. With current cuts including a 30% budget slash in the Arts Council, a huge figure that will likely see museums charging entry amongst other things, Brody is looking for new ways to secure creativity in the UK. He took the evening’s talk to announce his work with the Alternative Arts Council, a new initiative that Brody is intimately involved with. The Alternative Arts Council’s aim is to not only support alternative arts, but to also find new ways of supporting the arts, especially in the channeling of corporate funding.

This is reflective of Brody’s Anti-Design Festival, held earlier this year. This was attended by over 10,000 people who became involved in the exhibition; having ideas, changing things and becoming part of the exhibit. This, for Brody, demonstrates the importance of the physical space for interaction – both with the space and between people. He wants to ensure that creativity remains inventive and does not become an elite space, reserved for those who can afford increased tution fees. 

Overall Brody feels the future is very exciting. He sees the present as the largest step we have taken since the industrial revolution, which Brody terms the ‘knowledge revolution’ (rather than a digital revolution). With the speed of upload of video and images to the web, Brody sees a near future where anything, from anytime will be available to anyone, anywhere – everyone is connected. In such a sphere, Brody claims that “graphic design is dead”. By this he means graphic design as a vertical skill set. Instead he sees design as moving increasingly towards interactivity, time based media, storytelling and 3D space as “joined up”. Ultimately Brody questions what is the public service for design? 


Illustration by Karolina Burdon

Pretty pictures were also on display as Brody took the audience through the reserach and design process of creating Arena Homme+. Published twice a year, Research Studios have one month to fully research, experiment, design and produce each issue. Each issue produces on average six bespoke typefaces and Brody showed the experimenting and design process for font development for two issues, showing how he attempts (rather successfully) to make typography part of the story in a rather painterly manner. Typography is used to pull readers into the words and to reflect shapes and tone of photographic layouts. 
Brody, who declares himself as a punk who ended up smack in the middle of the establishment, has deservedly done rather well for himself. He has just this week been awarded the Prince Philip Designers Prize and in 2011 will be joining the Royal College of Art, heading the Visual Communication programme. With this new post, let’s hope Brody is able to continue and increase his influence in British design.

Read our review of the Anti-design Festival here.

Categories ,Alternative Arts Council, ,Anti-design Festival, ,Arena Homme+, ,Art Direction, ,Arts Council, ,Budget, ,Design Week, ,Lynda Relph-Knight, ,museums, ,Neville Brody, ,Prince Phillip Design Prize, ,Research Studios, ,Royal College of Art, ,Student protests, ,The Face, ,tokyo, ,typography, ,va, ,Visual Communication

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Amelia’s Magazine | Fifty Years of Illustration: an interview with coauthor Lawrence Zeegen

Fifty_Years_Of_Illustration_Cover
The definitive Fifty Years of Illustration by Lawrence Zeegen and Caroline Roberts was published by Laurence King late last year. This beautiful volume charts contemporary illustration’s rich history, starting with the rampant idealism of the 1960s, moving onto the bleak realism of the 1970s, the over-blown consumerism of the 1980s and the digital explosion of the 1990s, followed by the increasing diversification of illustration that represents the discipline in the early twenty-first century.

The book explores the contexts in which the discipline has operated and looks historically, sociologically, politically and culturally at the key factors at play across each decade, whilst artworks by key illustrators bring the decade to life. Contemporary illustration’s impact and influence on design and popular culture are investigated through introductory essays and profiles of leading practitioners, illustrated with examples of their finest work.’

Fifty_Years_Of_Illustration_1
Lawrence Zeegen is currently Dean of the School of Design at London College of Communication, University of the Arts London, where he leads pre-degree, undergraduate and postgraduate courses and research in animation, book arts, branding and identity, illustration, interface and interaction design, graphic communication design, spatial design and typographic design. In this in depth interview he tells us more the process of making this must have book.

Why did you decide to concentrate on the last 50 years of illustration in this book?
My book Fifty Years of Illustration charts the birth of contemporary illustration at the start of the 1960s to the present day. The sixties was the moment in time when illustrators first had an opportunity to create work away from the restrictions of the commercial client – underground publications sprang up as the counterculture evolved in San Francisco on the West Coast of the US and in London, whilst in New York studios such as Push Pin began to create and publish work that was more expressive and experimental than had previously been seen.

Contemporary illustration was born in the sixties and the discipline has undergone massive flux and a huge transformation during the five decades the book charts. From the energy and idealism of the sixties, the dreamlike escapism and contrasting bleak realism of the seventies, the over-blown consumerism and ‘greed-is-good’ ambitions of the eighties to the digital explosion of the nineties and the increasing diversification of illustration during the early 21st century, Fifty Years of Illustration explores the discipline through the key factors historically, sociologically, politically and culturally that determined each decade.

On a personal note, I turned 50 last year so the book covers illustration’s recent history aligned to my own development too. I’ve been working as an illustrator for 30 years, teaching illustration as an educator for 25 years and writing about illustration for 10 years so the book became a natural extension of my own interests in the subject.

Fifty_Years_Of_Illustration_8
How did you pick the artists to represent each era?
That’s a good question – it started some years ago with conversations, often over a glass or two of red wine, with Professor John Lord at University of Brighton and with others including Professor George Hardie and Ian Wright. Ultimately though the final long list was one I discussed with the publishers, of course, and with Caroline Roberts, who worked on the book with me. Caroline pointed me in the direction of a few illustrators I hadn’t considered and also helped to source a few from the 1960s and 1970s that weren’t easy to locate.

One consideration, not really visible to the reader, is a few restrictions placed on a project like this for a couple of very valid reasons – the publishers have co-publishers in mind from a variety of other countries so were keen that illustrators from these countries were represented in the book and the other issue that cropped up a few times was the cost in reproducing some of the images. Most illustrators allowed us to reproduce their work without a fee but a few, mainly those from a few decades ago and no longer alive, were represented by picture libraries and agencies and these charged for the rights to reproduce the works; fair enough, of course, but the picture budget was soon eaten up.

There will be those illustrators that weren’t included in the book that my fellow illustrators and academics will think should have been selected and there will, inevitably, be those illustrators that I have chosen that some will wonder what warranted their inclusion – ultimately, it really did come down to personal choice. I had a list for each decade in a notebook that I carried around for a couple of years and would update from time-to-time, scribbling down names and crossing out others. It is a personal selection and most definitely not the list to end all lists – there are a few illustrators that I’d have loved to include but in having to make a tight selection it just wasn’t possible to include everyone. I’ll be interested to see from the most recent decades, which illustrators stand the test of time – and would still make the grade when I revise the book for the 2nd edition in a few years time…

Fifty_Years_Of_Illustration_7
Do you have any personal favourites, and if so who are they and why?
Of course, it is impossible not to have a few favourites, even though the entire selection has been made up of my choices and ended up being quite subjective really. I guess I have favourites that span each decade. Having been born to young parents in the mid sixties I grew up to the soundtrack of the Beatles, so Klaus Voormann’s cover for Revolver still resonates very strongly for me. I met him recently and he is such a great guy and supremely talented – we’re talking about how to best celebrate the fifty years since Revolver was released next year.

Another favourite from the 1960s has to be Milton Glaser’s portrait of Dylan that ran as a poster inserted into the Bob Dylan’s Greatest Hits album released in 1967. Glaser is another hero I was fortunate enough to meet recently, this time in New York, and I asked him if the urban myth I had heard was true – did he hide the letters to spell out the word in E L V I S in Dylan’s hair, his response? ‘Yeah, I heard that too.’ He gave nothing away, and why should the guy that created one of the most iconic pieces of branding ever – I ♥ NY feel he has to confirm or deny rumours?

From the 1970s I would have to say my favourite images in the book are either Guy Peellaert’s gatefold album sleeve illustration of David Bowie for Diamond Dogs or perhaps Philip Castle’s poster for Stanley Kubrick’s Clockwork Orange, although George Hardie’s images have always been at the top of any of my lists too. From the 1980s Ivan Chermayeff’s graphic images at pretty unbeatable – yet another hero I was fortunate enough to meet last year, and Patrick Nagel’s rather cool expressionless models, as featured on Duran Duran’s Rio, have always been pretty special. Andrzej Klimowski was my tutor at the Royal College of Art at the end of the eighties, as was Dan Fern, and they both created some very iconic and influential work during that period.

More recently, during the 1990s, I have always liked the work of Andy Martin and John Hersey – both leading lights of the early digital era, and think illustrators Kam Tang, Brett Ryder and Kate Gibb are rather fantastic. Of the bunch, though, it would have to be MariscalCobi, his character for the Barcelona ’92 Olympics, was simply brilliantly envisaged and Mariscal himself is a character to behold, I met Mariscal at a lecture he gave at Central Saint Martins a few years ago and he knocked me out and again last year at a conference in Toronto I witnessed him entertain a crowd of 2000+ with a magnificently surreal talk and performance.

Bang up to date and through the 2000s and 2010s I would have to say that Jasper Goodall, Marion Deuchars, Airside, Antony Burril, Patrick Thomas, Jason Ford, Roderick Mills, Peepshow, Paul Davis, Adrian Johnson and Ian Wright are all firm favourites, but then I would say that – they’ll all old friends.

Fifty_Years_Of_Illustration_6
In your own artistic practice what era or style of illustration has been the biggest influence?
I can’t say that other illustrators have really ever influenced my own work – I have admired many but not drawn direct lines or references into my illustration practice, and that’s perhaps why I feel drawn (excuse the pun) to write about the subject. I have written seven or eight books on illustration featuring the work of thousands of illustrators but think I find my inspiration in the work of untrained jobbing graphic artists of yesteryear – I love old clip art, tattoo art, rubber stamp graphics and the images that once adorned the back pages of cheap magazines and comics.

If I had to name the artists that have inspired me – Patrick Caulfield, Warhol, Kurt Schwitters, Julian Opie would be up there but the list goes on, and I think I’ve been just as inspired by music, TV, literature, film and popular culture generally. I grew up listening to the Clash, reading Colin Maccinnes, watching Tomorrow’s World and dancing to soul music – these have all been as a big an influence on my work as any artist I think.

Fifty_Years_Of_Illustration_5
How long did it take to put this book together?
A good question and if I’m honest – far too long! I originally had the idea over a decade ago but I couldn’t get a publisher interested. Illustration was very much out of favour during the 1990s and it wasn’t until I had written a few other books on contemporary illustration that sold pretty well and illustration itself had come in from the cold, that I managed to persuade a publisher it would be a good idea.

How-to-do illustration books and how-to-work-in illustration books are ten-a-penny nowadays but ten years ago this wasn’t so, and this is what publishers wanted – and I was happy to oblige, of course. Getting a book published on the history of illustration, however, was more of a challenge. It was tricky for a few reasons – publishers weren’t sure that an audience for this type of book existed, but I was convinced that student and professional illustrators, and designers, would be interested. The other reason – books such as Fifty Years of Illustration can be a nightmare to publish is the sheer volume of images that require usage clearance and the coordination and communication with so many illustrators can be daunting and seemingly never-ending.

I have to say that Laurence King Publishing were behind the project from the start and were very supportive – they were also very patient too. It was the publishers that suggested to me that we bring in Caroline to share some of the workload, a good idea. I decided on the structure of the book, made the decisions on the list of illustrators – who should be in to represent each decade, and I wrote the introductory essay and each of the chapter essays and Caroline worked on the profiles – it was a fairly easy process once I’d established the illustrators but certainly the project as a whole was very time-consuming. Books such as this one are very labour intensive, and I had to fit it around the rest of my work. I’m the Dean of the School of Design at London College of Communication and that’s a pretty demanding role – I have 2000 students across a multitude of undergraduate and postgraduate design courses within my remit and even with research as an aspect of my role as the Professor of Illustration for University of the Arts London writing is only an element of what I do.

Fifty_Years_Of_Illustration_4
Who designed the cover and why did you choose them? (do you feel their style represents the ‘now’ and if so why?)
The cover was always going to be tricky, and we did commission a very internationally known illustrator to create a bespoke cover image and then waited about six months before it was delivered. And it wasn’t right. We, myself and Angus Hyland the Pentagram partner and Creative Director at Laurence King, then decided to ask Jeff Fisher. I knew I wanted a cover that was made up of hand rendered letterforms – with the book packed with illustration it was never going to work to have an illustration on the cover. Jeff did, I think, a magnificent job – the cover fits the book, feels right and has enough gravitas, without being formal or stuffy, to present the subject as both readable and approachable. I always wanted the book to appeal to a wider audience than simply illustrators and designers, and I think it has achieved that and a great cover helps a book increase interest.

What in particular determined inclusion for the artists representing The New Wave, who are working today?
Presenting a new wave of artists is always going to be challenging – it is the biggest section of the book and it is about the here and now, or at least those working that have made most impact onto the illustration scene, as I see it, from the beginning of the 2000s to the present day. I would argue that Jasper Goodall was one of a small elite that had a huge influence across design for his approach to fashion illustration, that Shepard Fairey, whilst a street artist rather than an illustrator, contributed hugely to putting the first black man into the White House with his illustrated poster campaign supporting Obama and that Airside, Marion Deuchars and Alex Trochut, to name but a few, also brought illustration to new audiences because of the appeal, accessibility and the visible platforms for their work.

What are the biggest challenges facing an illustrator working today?
Where to start? Illustrators have it all and yet have nothing at all too. You want great flexibility in your working life, want to work where and when you want then illustration may well be the right career choice for you. But it really isn’t that simple – illustration is a tough industry to break into, tougher still to maintain a presence in and even if you are flavour of the month, and who says it will last any longer, you will still find it hard to call the shots. Illustrators are guns-for-hire and style is king – when you’re style is in vogue you can do no wrong, but when its been seen and done and the art directors, designers and those who commission have moved on, if you’ve not moved on too – then the phone stops ringing and emails stop pinging through. It can be a tough, and brutal existence and can be totally dictated by demand – unless you’re smart enough to have other outlets for your illustration work, of course. For those illustrators that create their own prints, products and paraphernalia there can be life after the commercial commissions, but making a genuine living from this is increasingly difficult I think. There is a reason that most working illustrators are under the age of thirty.

At the risk of sounding far too negative though, I do think that working as an illustrator is great fun; I spent 10 years working out of a studio in Hoxton, Big Orange, that a gang of us set up upon graduation from the Royal College of Art in 1989 and enjoyed every minute of the experience – the studio is still in existence today but with not a single founding member still present, and I guess that does say something of how important younger illustrators constantly coming onto the scene is.

Fifty_Years_Of_Illustration_3
At the back of the book you state that there is still a lot left to do to record the impact of illustration on art, design and society – why do you think this is the case?
Because illustration has, until now, been treated as a subsection of graphic design, as a footnote in graphic design’s rich history. I believe that there is a vital history that needs to be documented – that illustration has played a major part in defining the 20th and now the 21st centuries and is an aspect of our visual culture that hasn’t been consdiered seriously enough. The first visual communication between humans, before written language, was most likely scratched or drawn in the sand of dirt by a finger or a stick – this wasn’t cave art; it was illustration. Illustration was the earliest form of graphic communication – we encourage young kids to draw, to express themselves through illustration but yet we don’t take the discipline seriously enough, we don’t reflect on how illustration shapes, entertains and informs us. I hope that Fifty Years of Illustration is just one chapter in the recording of illustration’s great history and that others recognize the value of the subject. I’m not done on the subject myself, that’s for sure, I have other opinions, views and ideas about the discipline and will be writing, lecturing and presenting on illustration for a few more years yet, but this is call-to-arms for others to join me in celebrating, and berating illustration (because not everything is perfect) – we have to talk about the good, the bad and the ugly of the discipline and to a wider audience too.

Who do you hope will read this book and why would you recommend it?
As I’ve said really – art and design students and design and illustration professionals as well, but I really hope too that this book is picked up, looked at and read by those with an interest in the subject. Illustration is the ‘people’s art’ so I hope that people will see something of interest in the book – from the children’s illustrated book they loved reading or being read to at bedtime to the record they loved as a teenager, with artwork they stared at for hours whilst listening to the music, illustration has had an impact into our lives in so many ways and is a fascinating subject to read about and look into.

Fifty_Years_Of_Illustration_2
On a personal level why do you love illustration so much?
I grew up with it, from my first love of illustration through the Ladybird books of my childhood, to the 7-inch single sleeves of my teenage years and life as an art student I always came back to the illustrated image as a means of visual communication. I like being around illustrators too – I like their sense of the world, their desire to tell stories and communicate and the incredible skills many illustrators demonstrate through their work. I also like that illustration is accessible and everyday – you don’t need to go to a gallery to see illustration – pick up a book or newspaper, you don’t need to ‘understand’ illustration – it isn’t complex, it is what it is.

You have said you should “feed your brain, feed your eyes, feed your soul” – where do you go to do this?
Anywhere and everywhere – personally, I read newspapers and magazines, I was once a magazine fiend and every copy of The Face ever published for example, I see movies, I listen to music, I trawl the internet – all the same stuff we all do.

I’ve been fortunate to travel a lot and wherever I am in the world I bring back ideas, references, research – last year I took photographs and inspiration from trips to South Korea, Turkey, Italy, Canada, USA, Hong Kong, China… it is hard not to draw influences from such fascinating places.

I meet many people too, in my line of work, and much of my thinking comes from conversations and meetings with great students, great academics and great practitioners – I am a great believer in surrounding oneself with smart people that challenge you to think smarter, work harder and keep you focused on doing great work – whether it be an illustration, a lecture on illustration, an article or book on illustration. And I am also a great believer in having an opinion, a point of view, and getting it out there.

Buy Fifty Years of Illustration here.

Categories ,Adrian Johnson, ,airside, ,Alex Trochut, ,Andy Martin, ,Antony Burril, ,Big Orange, ,Bob Dylan, ,Brett Ryder, ,Caroline Roberts, ,Clockwork Orange, ,Cobi, ,David Bowie, ,Fifty Years of Illustration, ,George Hardie, ,Guy Peellaert, ,Ian Wright, ,Ivan Chermayeff, ,Jason Ford, ,Jasper Goodall, ,Jeff Fisher, ,John Hersey, ,Julian Opie, ,Kam Tang, ,Kate Gibb, ,Klaus Voormann, ,Kurt Schwitters, ,Laurence King, ,Lawrence Zeegen, ,London College of Communication, ,Marion Deuchars, ,Mariscal, ,Milton Glaser, ,Patrick Caulfield, ,Patrick Nagel, ,Patrick Thomas, ,Paul Davis, ,Peepshow, ,Philip Castle, ,Professor George Hardie, ,Professor John Lord, ,Professor of Illustration, ,Revolver, ,Roderick Mills, ,Royal College of Art, ,The Face, ,University of Brighton, ,University of the Arts London, ,Warhol

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Amelia’s Magazine | Red Bull Music Academy: Steve Reich Lecture on Tuesday 16th February 2010

Steve Reich by Gemma Milly
Steve Reich by Gemma Milly
Steve Reich by Gemma Milly.

Steve Reich is a seriously cult figure for contemporary beats based music. Famed for his minimalist compositions from the 60s onwards he continues to be active today and even though I’ve heard he can be a difficult old bugger to interview, erectile at 74 years of age he was charming and lucid when he gave his lecture to the students of the 2010 Red Bull Music Academy.

Red Bull Music Academy lecture theatre.
Red Bull Music Academy lecture theatre.

I skirted into the back of the packed lecture theatre just as he was starting – and I use the term ‘lecture theatre’ lightly because we are talking the most comfortable lecture theatre you ever saw. Designer arm chairs stuffed with colour co-ordinated cushions were orientated around a sofa interview area above which hung the distinctive Red Bull coat of arms, if you will. Emma “rabbit” Warren, who I’ve known since I was an intern at The Face over a decade ago, was tasked with asking the questions – over the years she has carved a niche for herself in this particular music scene and acts as a “team member” for the academy.

emma-warren-gemma-milly
Emma Warren by Gemma Milly.

What follows is by no means a direct transcription of the interview, but an edited version that I hope will make sense to not only those who attended the lecture but anyone who is interested in finding out more about what makes Steve Reich tick. It was certainly an education for me.

Steve Reich‘s musical career started with piano lessons and then the study of drums at the age of 14. This conversation began with his move to San Francisco in 1962 where he decided to become a cabbie so that he wouldn’t have to teach. Emma asked whether it was hard to make music around his day job. “Night job,” he corrected her. “Necessity is the mother of invention – I coulda taught harmony and theory in Nebraska but I’d had it up to here with the academic world.” He saw how his friends became beaten down. “In my time almost all the composers in the US were in universities because that was the easiest job to get but I’m sure that now even being a DJ will be turned into academic trash. But you need to put a lot of energy into teaching and I think if you can’t then that’s immoral, and if you do then you’re gonna be too wiped out to make music.” Surely a sage piece of advice to anyone considering juggling teaching with a successful artistic career. “I had a good time driving the cab and I wasn’t invested in it – it really fit me and was making more money than most musical professors too!”

Unfortunately he wasn’t a cab driver for long: “I inched forward and bumped into someone and ended up working in a post office.” Emma asked if this was an influential period – down amongst the sounds of the ‘street’. “I don’t know how true that would be. All music comes from a time and place. I come from New York, the West Coast, during the 1960s and 70s.” New York was a noisy place to be. “I used to wander around with earplugs in.” He attributes his early experimentations with loops and phasing on a tape machine to such ideas being “in the air” during that period. “You are who you are and your music will bear evidence to the honesty of the situation.”

In the early 60s the Cuban Missile Crisis got everyone “kinda concerned… we felt the clock was ticking. The crisis passed but it made its mark.” In 1964 he recorded Brother Walter in Union Square preaching about the flood and created seminal work “It’s Gonna Rain” where he made use of the sounds without focusing on their meaning. “Do you hear the ‘wap wap’ in the background? That’s the wings of a pigeon, a pigeon drummer.” He described at length how he played around with the sounds, feeding them through mono into stereo and then back again, to offset the source material and create the pioneering phasing technique that has influenced many contemporary composers since. Because he cut the tape loops by hand there was always going to be a bit of drift, creating a “sense of direction”. He gleefully describes how the sound “slides across your testicles, it’s really creepy! You can feel the vibration, and then it gets to one ear sooner than the other.” He found it intriguing that he could splice things together to make sounds that resembled the beats found in African music. “I thought – what have I got here? Mechanised Africans!” The piece becomes progressively more spooky and paranoid in feel. “We’re in the ark, locking the door, it’s the end of the world… a betrayal in sound.” Lest we doubt this sudden moribund turn he confirms, “Yes, I was in a bad state of mind at the time and given what was going on in the world.”

steve-reich & Emma Warren by gemma-milly
Steve Reich & Emma Warren in conversation by Gemma Milly.

A trip to Ghana in 1971 to study music was a key turning point. “All music there was a religiously, politically or historically orientated part of everyday life.” Whilst there he managed to contract malaria by picking up 100s of bites on his sandalled feet, despite a dose of anti-malarials. He realised that music was a form of communication that families were morally obliged to upkeep, but laughed that he met a Ghanaian man many years later who was no longer interested in “grandpa’s music”. Tastes change all over the world.

But Steve was keen not to fall into the trap of trying to adopt African music wholesale. “Many people from my generation drowned in India – it’s like an ocean containing thousands of years of music and as an individual it’s hard to make any sense out of it.” He bought some gang gangs in Ghana – iron bells that are used to accompany songs with a beautiful rattle. “They’re not that big, and I bought six of them. I thought I would use them in my music, but I don’t have perfect pitch and I was like ‘what do I do? They don’t sound right, should I get out the metal file?’ But then I felt like they would be saying ‘hi, I’m a gang gang, pleased to meet you,’ if I used them in my music. I am not an African and they carry the weight of a culture that’s not mine – so I had to think about what I had learnt that could travel, and that was the structure.”

He returned keen to play around with rhythmical complexity of the kind that is used in jazz such as the big band classic Africa/Brass by Coltrane. “It sounds like elephants coming through the jungle for half an hour, there’s no harmonic movement and yet it’s definitely not boring!” He concluded that there was tension and intensity precisely because there was no change. “In Shotgun by Junior Walker you’re waiting for another section, but there is no other section. There was something in the air [during that period] and it was harmonic stasis – even Bob Dylan was experimenting with one chord. It was coming in from other sources outside the west; the structural idea of a canon as an empty vessel that can travel anywhere.”

1971 was also the last year that Steve used the looped tape phasing technique, although he was keen not to be rude about laptop music in a room full of predominantly electronic musicians. “My live ideas came from a machine because all divisions are permeable.” Yet he felt trapped by gadgetry. “I felt like ‘I can’t leave this thing and I can’t do it live!’ I didn’t want to be a little tape maker.” The fact remains that he sees synthesisers and their ilk primarily as a means to an end. “I like the analogue sound so I was excited when the sampler was invented.” He felt liberated and exhilarated once he was able to say “look ma, no tape!” and started teaching ensembles to play his compositions live without the aid of traditional musical notation. Since then his music has got progressively more complex and he has always toured with a close clique of live musicians that he’s worked with for many years. “We’re the gold standard but other generations have picked it up. For instance the musicians in Riga in Latvia burnt Music for 18 Musicians right down into the ground.” Nowadays he uses midi mockups of live compositions to send out for performers to learn across the world.

Emma asked if there was some benefit in musicians learning his compositions without the benefit of written musical scores. “When music began we can speculate that there was no notation. Even early notation is in question. Notation as we know it started during the 10th and 11th centuries in the West – to save music for posterity. There were little pockets where people wrote things down, such as some isolated forms in Indonesia, but it was a marginal thing.” He concluded that notated music has only ever formed a very small part of all the music created worldwide and wonders if it even has a future. “Nowadays the normal position for walking down the street is like this,” he says, standing, head down, arm up, as if his mobile is in his hand. “It won’t be without it’s consequences…”

Steve believes that folk music can be used to describe whatever we interact with that’s around us, and can spontaneously arise in any culture. “Pop music is the folk music of our culture so in some sense electronics are the folk instrument of our time.” We’d come to the end of the guided lecture time, and sat in awed silence as Steve Reich played arguably his most famous piece, Music for 18 Musicians, through the huge lecture PA system… that is until an abrupt technical glitch snapped us all out of our reverie. “Anyone know how this thing works?!” asked Steve, frustratedly betraying his technophobery.

Find out how Steve answered a series of very well thought out questions from the floor in the next blog

Categories ,60s, ,70s, ,Coltrane, ,dj, ,Electronic music, ,Elephants, ,Emma Warren, ,Gemma Milly, ,ghana, ,jazz, ,Junior Walker, ,Minimalist music, ,Orchestras, ,Philip Glass, ,Red Bull Music Academy, ,sampling, ,San Francisco, ,Steve Reich, ,The Face

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